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Strawberries are here for their short stay

Strawberries are here for their short stay

Oh, Strawberries! They are abound now and will be gone soon.

I was thrilled that a local 3 generation family owned farm with organic, pesticide free, picked daily, fruits and veggies, have opened a second stand down the road from me. They have another stand near by but this one is super convenient for me. Now I have three to pick from all within less than 15 minutes drive and, that's not counting the 2 farmer's market's.

I feel so spoiled after moving from the desert. There was one ranch that was picked over and trampled before anything was ready at least by the time I arrived. It made me so sad to see had people abused all the brothers hard work. Thank goodness Whole Foods arrived.

I've made a few batches for sending to some of my family and, extra for Mike..who loves my strawberry jam, strawberry shortcake and anything else strawberry.

I made some strawberry shortcake cookies. It's an old Martha Stewart recipe that I've tweaked with sour cream instead of heavy cream. Basically, I think it's just like a scone. I think I would like scones made with these fresh strawberries even more than the cookies. But these are different and very enjoyable.

I also baked a Pain Au Levain with whole wheat ala Jeffrey Hamelman's 'Bread'. Mike loves a bit of toast with the SJ.

The cookies are a great little carry and go strawberry shortcake. Not overly sweet. You can taste the sweet fresh tasting berries..so best eaten the same day or kept a short while in the frig.

This jam was made using Sure-Jell fruit pectin. I like it because it requires a short cooking time for the fruit, retaining more flavor nutrients and, I can get a nice predictable jell the consistancy, I like by making tiny adjustments depending on the fruit's juicyness. I usually get about 6oz. more than the recipe states. I don't like my jam set stiffish firm..It's important to follow the measurements given as closely as possible.

Use ripe, firm fruit. I rinse them in a collander. Holding each one in a paper towel, decap, pull out the core, cut off any white or bruised part on my strawberry. This also dries each one off nicely and, removes a lot of those little strawberry hairs) then slice into about 1/2 rings. Place enough to make about a cup of mashed ones, into the bottom of a ceramic pie plate and using my potato masher, mash them and then measure an exact cup full till I get what is recipe required including the juice. Their shouldn't be a lot of juice if you dried them good and used firm ripe fruit.

Follow the package measurments and proceed having everything ready for proper safe canning.

I'm below 1000 ft. so I process boiling water canner for just 5 minutes.

Sylvia but those cookies are on today's bake list is a short one and has to include those fine cookies. Gorgeous they are and delicious the must be. The bread looks fantastic inside and out. Got to go to the store now :-)

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